She wasn’t bothered by Arthur calling her Guinevere in company with others who didn’t know her story, but she was taken aback to hear him proudly sharing this trivia.

Percival’s interest was thoroughly piqued. He leaned toward her. “Are you really? How’s that going?”

“Mm, it’s a mixed bag.” She laughed nervously. “But I can consistently hold up a full-sized lance now, so that’s something.”

“You’re being modest,” Arthur said to her before he turned back to Percival. “She doesn’t believe me when I say it, but she’s doing incredibly well. I think she’s ready for an opponent.”

It was the second time he’d said that aloud this week. The first was at their most recent training session, and Vera brushed it off as a bit of hyperbole for the sake of encouragement. As Arthur looked pointedly at Percival, she started to realize his comment this evening wasn’t simply for the sake of conversation. Percival tilted his head in question. Arthur nodded.

“I could do it,” Percival said, his eyes gleaming as he leaned forward.

“You have the best aim,” Arthur said.

Percival beamed. “It’s the one thing I can actually best Arthur and Lancelot at. His Majesty is stronger, Lancelot’s better at … well, every single other thing. But I’ve mastered the lance. Bit useless in anything that matters, but I’ll take it. Do you want to?” he asked her.

Vera straightened in her seat. “Seriously?”

Their rising voices drew Lancelot’s attention. “What are we serious about?”

“Arthur’s been teaching Guinevere to joust,” Percival said. “And I’m going to be her first opponent.”

The smile hadn’t fallen from Lancelot’s face, but it darkened significantly as he looked each of them in the eye, landing on Arthur, who he fixed with a scathing scowl. “Are you out of your mind? That is so dangerous. No. Absolutely not.”

Vera’s eyebrows shot up.

“All right, all right,” Percival conceded, raising his hands apologetically in front of him.

Lancelot nodded, apparently mollified. As soon as he’d turned his attention back to the lute, Percival leaned across Arthur to Vera. “He doesn’t have to know.”

Before their run in the morning, Vera had decided that she wasn’t going to tell Lancelot that she, Arthur, and Percival had made plans for her first official jousting bout a few short hours later. But the damn man read her face like a children’s book. He knew she was hiding something less than a mile in. And after he chipped away at her resolve for the better part of an hour, peppering her with annoyingly earnest concern, Vera’s guilt won out, and she came clean.

He went silent for a few tense minutes.

“You’re angry with me,” Vera said, surprised to realize it.

“I’m not—” He stopped. “All right. Yes, I am. This is foolish. I’m angry with all three of you. I’m not going to allow it to happen.”

But it wasn’t up to him, and he ultimately knew that.

He was methodical in his attempt to peck away at the jousting plan as they walked to the practice arena in the woods. “You can’t use that ill-fitted armor she’s been wearing for an actual match. It will have to wait at least until she has her armor,” he said reasonably.

Vera pursed her lips as Arthur said, “That’s true, but Randall’s already finished it. She’s been using her new armor for two weeks now.”

Lancelot huffed and turned on Vera. “And what do you intend to do if Percival misses his mark, and you are seriously injured?”

“Well,” she began calmly, only serving to make Lancelot’s brow furrow deeper. “Thankfully, you had the good sense to bring Gawain. He can fix us right up if either of us gets injured.”

“But not extensively,” Gawain piped in unhelpfully. “If either of you is impaled, that’s far beyond the scope of my magic. You’d be fucked.”

Percival turned slowly to glare at Gawain as Lancelot threw a similar but more pointed look at Arthur.

“She’s not going to be impaled,” Arthur said patiently. “That’s why I’m not doing it and why I didn’t ask you.” He didn’t mean it as a jab; it was the truth. “Percival’s aim is as steady and true as they come.”

They arrived at the clearing, and Arthur and Percival started helping Vera get her armor on. She loved how it fit and the way it made her feel like a proper warrior. But despite her feigned confidence as she argued with Lancelot, Vera privately had many of the same misgivings.

She and Percival mounted their horses, and with the imminent joust now seeming inevitable, Lancelot turned his rage on Percival. “This is an awful idea,” he said, the vein in his forehead pulsing as he snatched the reins of Percival’s horse to force him to listen. “If you tip your lance and hurt her, as your commanding officer, I will have you executed.”

Was this really Lancelot speaking? The same Lancelot who told Wyatt not to help Vera when she struggled in training, who goaded her into swinging from a rope into a dark pond, who—for God’s sake—the same Lancelot who brought Vera to a roadside shakedown of teenage thieves the first night she’d met him. And now, when she was adequately trained and armored and her opponent steady and trustworthy, Lancelot was out of his mind. Percival looked cowed by his threat because he sounded like he meant it.

“Lancelot,” Vera said, “if I happen to accidentally be injured by Percival, I order you not to execute him. And,” she added, having only recently gotten a good grasp of hierarchical statuses, “in the matter of ordering executions, I’m fairly certain I outrank you.”

“She does,” Arthur called from behind them.

Lancelot wheeled on him and yelled a wordless roar before marching over to stand next to Gawain, his arms crossed as he mumbled and shook his head. With a sigh and an apologetic smile at Vera, Gawain patted Lancelot’s back. The role reversal might have been comical had Lancelot’s fervor not rankled her deeper than it ought to.

Vera and Percival were nearly ready. They met in the middle, approximately where they would soon collide in the joust.

“Don’t you dare pull your lance,” she told him sternly, worrying that Lancelot’s threat may have shaken him too much.

But Percival flipped his visor up, and his eyes glinted. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Your Majesty.” She couldn’t see his mouth but knew from his cheeks bunched up against his eyes that his smile matched her own.

Arthur met Vera at her starting point to help her get her lance situated.

“Are you frightened?” he asked.

“A little bit,” she admitted.

“That’s good. Keep some fear, but don’t let it be in charge. You are well-trained, capable, and ready. Tuck your lance tight.” He mimed the motion, pulling his elbow into his side. “Head down a fraction to keep your helmet steady and do your best to stay horsed.” As he instructed her, Arthur patted her horse’s neck. If he was nervous for her, he wasn’t showing it. “Ready?”

Vera nodded and flipped her visor down, making much of her vision go dark and leaving a slim slit through which to see.

“I’ll wave the flag, and that’s your signal.” He brushed his fingers along the one unarmored place on the back of Vera’s leg. She held her breath at the touch—and the way he smiled at her. “You’re ready.”

Every so often, Vera had experienced moments of existence when time went extraordinarily fast and simultaneously moved at a snail’s pace. She felt Arthur would never reach the center point where he was to wave the flag. He seemed to be walking in slow motion. And then, her heart thundering in her chest and her legs shaking enough that she could hear the faint rattle of her armor quivering at its joints, the flag was high in the air and rushing toward the ground. Time overcorrected in the other direction, and everything began happening too quickly to take note of it all.